A man was arrested in London, England, on Wednesday for allegedly expressing support for Hamas online.
According to the Met Police, on Tuesday, June 4th, Counter Terrorism Policing received a public referral about online posts allegedly showing support for Hamas. The matter was referred to specialist officers in the national Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit for initial assessment of the posts and then passed to detectives within the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command for further investigation.
On Wednesday, 12 June, a 43-year-old man was arrested in west London on suspicion of showing support to a terrorist organization, contrary to section 12 of the Terrorism Act, 2000. He was taken into police custody and officers also carried out a search at an address in west London as part of the investigation.
The man was subsequently released from police custody and has been bailed to a date in September, with inquiries ongoing.
“Ever since the terrible attacks in Israel last October, and the subsequent conflict, there has been a significant increase in the amount of extremist and terrorist material being referred to us by the public," Commander Dominic Murphy, Head of the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, said.
“Each and every referral gets assessed by specialist officers and anything that is considered a potential terrorism offence here in the UK will get passed on for further investigation. From that investigation, if and where we find evidence of a crime being committed, then we’ll look to identify, arrest, and bring the person responsible to justice,” he added.